4 Way-Too-Early Predictions for Calgary Flames in 2025-26

The issue with trading Andersson is that it’s clear his value at this time isn’t what the Flames’ brass was hoping it would be. If it were, a trade would’ve already taken place, rather than allowing for this distraction to continue into the 2025-26 season. It appears now that the Flames are left with no option but to start the season with him and hope that he can rebound to help increase his trade value.

While it may not be until the trade deadline, the Flames are likely to move the Swedish defenceman. The unfortunate reality, however, is that fans need to prepare for the fact that the return may be much smaller than anyone had envisioned at this time a year ago. Perhaps general manager Craig Conroy has an ace up his sleeve, but as of now, it’s hard to picture him getting fair value when the time comes to trade the long-serving Flames defenceman.

Huberdeau Takes Another Step Forward

The 2024-25 season had to feel like a relief for Jonathan Huberdeau, who garnered tons of praise from the fan base after a rough go of things the two seasons prior. The 32-year-old maintained his steady two-way play while putting up a solid 28 goals and 62 points in 82 games. It’s not production you’d hope to see from a player commanding $10.5 million, but it was a massive upgrade from what he’d provided in both the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons.

Huberdeau will be entering training camp with a bit more swagger in his step after the much-improved year, and could be in store for even better. After all, this is a player who was coming off of a career-high 115 points when the Flames acquired him. While expecting anything remotely similar would be naïve, he could very well up his production once again and flirt with the 70-point mark in 2025-26.

Farabee Has Bounce Back Season

He gets a bit of a free pass given the midseason trade that saw him go from the Philadelphia Flyers to the Flames, but there’s no denying Joel Farabee’s 2024-25 campaign was an ugly one. After a career-high 50 points in 2023-24, he managed only a combined 25 points this past season, something which he himself acknowledged was embarrassing.

Though the Flyers seemingly wanted to move out what they felt was an undesirable contract in Farabee, who commands $5 million for the next three seasons, the fact of the matter is that he’s a very talented player. He’s hit the 20-goal mark twice in his career to date and has a great chance to do so again on a Flames team that could desperately use some more offensive contributors.

Wolf Continues to Excel

We often hear about the sophomore slump regarding NHL players, and it’s impossible to deny that it’s a real thing. We’ve seen many players exceed expectations as rookies, only to fall back down to earth the following season. As such, there is some talk that we could see a bit of regression from Dustin Wolf in what will be his second NHL season, but fans need not worry about what ver sion of the 24-year-old we’ll see this coming season.

Wolf is a player who has been on an upward trajectory his entire career, and there’s no reason to expect that to stop now. He isn’t the type to get complacent, as he’s had to work hard at proving people wrong his entire playing career, and this upcoming season will be no different. Expect similar, if not better numbers, than we saw from the young star goaltender in 2025-26.

Flames Should Continue to Be a Problem

While it’s hard to say the Flames are a surefire playoff team this coming season, it’s also hard to envision this team taking a major tumble down the standings. This is a competitive group who seemingly like proving their many detractors wrong, and there’s no reason we should expect anything less from head coach Ryan Huska’s group once the 2025-26 season gets underway.